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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26177767">Once in A Lifetime</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultrafreakyfangirl/pseuds/ultrafreakyfangirl'>ultrafreakyfangirl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sweet Magnolias (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:27:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,912</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26177767</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultrafreakyfangirl/pseuds/ultrafreakyfangirl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyler only ever wants to be asking the question once - one time, and to one person, because he believes that its answer is meant to last a lifetime.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Annie Sullivan/Tyler "Ty" Townsend</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Once in A Lifetime</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He nervously adjusted his tie, once, then twice, over. With another heavy sigh, he ran his hands through his hair, contemplating, not for the first time tonight, why in the world he was so nervous. This was Annie. <em>His</em> Annie. There had never been another reason for him to be nervous around her, not since the day he’d asked her to be his girlfriend, five years ago today, and nearly to the hour.</p>
<p>Tyler checked his watch. Two more to go. He had two hours left to say the thing he’s wanted to since the first time their lips touched in an authentic kiss, one that was very much consensual on either side this time; two hours left to ask her the one question he knew he would never ask another person, because Annie was just <em>it</em> for him.</p>
<p>She was his, and he, well, he knew that he was hers, just by the way her hands run down his back when she passes by him, almost in a quiet sense of possession, something to make him remember, as if he’s ever forgotten. <em>I’m here. I’m here, and I’m yours. I’m here, and you’re mine.</em></p>
<p>He turned, her hands warm on his back, their heat radiating through his suit jacket. Her perfume filled his nose in the exact moment he took his first breath, a subdued flowery scent, lilac, maybe, lavender, matching the soothing sound of her voice; her mouth forming the letters of his name, his given name, softly passing through her lips.</p>
<p>“Tyler Sean Townsend. My Lord, aren’t you just a sight for sore eyes.”</p>
<p>Her smile was kittenish, but sweet, and it was something of an expression; he’d only ever seen it play across her face, across her soft but angular features; no other girl, not even Caroline, and once upon a time, Ty had loved that girl, could pull a face like that and have him shaking in his boots. It’s not all, but it’s part of the reason why he just <em>has </em>to marry her.</p>
<p>His dad thinks he’s crazy, his mom believes her son is a hopeless romantic, and his little brother, well, he just pretends not to see the cracks in his smile. The fact that it’s honestly still very childlike makes it worse, but still, he pretends not to notice. He has to. Marrying Annie, <em>his Annie,</em> was his only goal in this life. Except for the MLB. And he’d already achieved that one.</p>
<p>His gaze moved momentarily to the picture on the wall, of him and her on the baseball diamond in Atlanta, Georgia, after his first Braves game; a sheen of sweat on his face, a cowlick sprung from his forehead, but a smile that rivaled any and all other, on his mouth. Her arm was around his waist, his around hers, doing a better job at cinching than the little, thin belt of her dress, blue, like the sky, and her smile, shining and bright, was like the sun.</p>
<p>Tonight, her smile was no more subdued then in that very picture. She looked happy. She looked so happy, and so<em>, so,</em> <em>beautiful.</em> She was wearing a deep red dress with an equally deep V that he wasn’t used to seeing on her, though it wasn’t a backhanded compliment. Quite the opposite actually, because the dark of the red complimented the darkness of her hair, falling across her shoulders, dipping slightly, seductively, almost, into the creamy estuary of skin the neckline showed to him, and proudly at that.</p>
<p>“Annabelle Josephine Sullivan,” he smiled at her when she looked away, embarrassed, but she had no right to be. Absolutely no right at all. He took her chin in his hand, tilted it to the left, and upwards towards him, so that her lips pointed towards his own. “My Lord, aren’t you just absolutely beautiful?”</p>
<p>Her lips were bare, as they always were, and something about that gave him reassurance. <em>Annie.</em> He leaned down to kiss her, and she fell into it so softly, with such trust in him in the way she nearly melted into his arms. <em>His Annie with her raspberry Chapstick. Freshly twenty-one, but still, and forever, sixteen.  </em></p>
<p>“I love you,” she whispered to him as they broke apart, and he pulled her right back to him again, smiling into the kiss, and then she did too, and their front teeth grazed awkwardly, but it only served to have him wishing that they could stay like this forever. In their little bubble of happiness.</p>
<p>“I love you too,” he said back to her, with a slightly stronger conviction he hoped she didn’t pick up on. He wanted to ask her so badly, right here, right now, in their kitchen with the dishwasher running, both barefoot on the hardwood floors.</p>
<p>They drove to the restaurant just after that, Ty holding the wheel with both hands almost in a death grip, soothed by her fingertips moving across the ridges of his knuckles. He’d only been driving two years since the accident, and while it was slowly getting easier, it was still especially nerve-wracking at night, and darkness came early as winter approached.</p>
<p>He’d arranged this weeks prior. Ms. Dana Sue worked it out so that Sullivan’s would be closed to the public on this day, and he made sure a table in the center of the room was set up with a tablecloth, candles, <em>dessert forks,</em> whatever those were -  honestly he couldn’t tell the difference why not just use one fork for everything!? While her mom practically guffawed at him, Annie swiftly agreed with his point, with no reaction at all to her mom’s bristling. That, ladies, and gentlemen, is yet another reason he <em>has</em> to marry this girl. She’s a sweet little Southern spitfire and he loves her beyond measure.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>His gaze dropped to <em>that</em> finger on her left hand when she picked up her <em>dessert fork</em> after their dinner plates had been cleared away by the tireless Isaac. She had six ridges in that knuckle in total, and there was a freckle just below the last one, and her nails were painted, a subtle, light yellow, a color that was so <em>Annie</em>, but, a color that was and not that he even gives a rat’s – so wrong for the dress. The only thing that mattered now was how that finger would look with a diamond ring. And the dress, well, that part wouldn’t matter as much, because that dress, as sexy as it is, would be in a pile at the foot of their bed <em>as soon</em> as they got home tonight.</p>
<p>“What are you thinking about?” She smiled openly at him; her hands splayed on the table now as she grasped discreetly for her napkin.</p>
<p>Tyler paused. He couldn’t very well say <em>sex with you,</em> but he also couldn’t say <em>the moment when you finally become my fiancée, </em>either. So he was stuck.</p>
<p>“Just…stuff.”</p>
<p>“Stuff?”</p>
<p>She tilted her head to the side, pursed her lips, then blinked before staring at him straight on, her eyes wide. He never had bedroom eyes, or he didn’t think he did anyways, but Annie, she has bedroom <em>face.</em> It’s in the way her cheeks puff out slightly, in the way her left eyebrow, but just her left, raises an increment, in the way her lips seem fuller, more tempting, and it all comes together in the way her eyes darken heedlessly, without conscious control, and it really helps things along, knowing that he does this to her, makes her<em> feel</em> things, <em>think </em>things, just with the insinuation of one, single word.</p>
<p>
  <em>Stuff. </em>
</p>
<p>Ty cleared his throat with a smile. “Yeah. Like how much I love you.”</p>
<p>She placed her hand on top of his with an easy smile, much like his own. Loving her was so easy. It really was, and more than that, it was a privilege.</p>
<p>“I love you, too.”</p>
<p>A privilege he never, ever, wanted to lose. And so, he stood up from the chair, felt in his suit pocket for the ring box, and took a deep, settling, breath. He was nervous. So nervous. But everything about it felt <em>so right.</em></p>
<p>“Annie, you’re something special. There’s no other way around it. It’s just the truth. Everyone in your life can see it. They can tell just by looking into your eyes, at your smile, at the way your eyebrows furrow when you’re confused; they can tell by listening to your laugh, the way it sounds like a four year old, the cutest little four year old, by listening to the way you talk about your whims and passions; they can tell by how you take your coffee, milk and Stevia, no cream, and no real, actual sugar, you weirdo.”</p>
<p>He took a break to grin at her to show that he was only teasing.</p>
<p>“I know that you’re special in the way you tell me that you love me, in the way that your mouth moulds to mine so seamlessly, when we kiss. It’s like we’re meant to be together, and always have been, like two long-lost souls finding each other again from another life, because our first time, it didn’t feel like our first time.”</p>
<p>He watched her nod slowly, a ruminative slope to her mouth. He knew what she was thinking about, and now he was thinking about the same thing. Only for a minute.</p>
<p>“I love you, Annabelle Josephine Sullivan. I love you with everything I have and more. And I want to keep loving you, and reminding you that you are special, and show you that you are deserving of all the love in the world, every day for the rest of my life.”</p>
<p>He watched her eyes go wide, watched her cover her mouth daintily with her hand. She had to have known where this was going.</p>
<p>He finally got down on one knee in front of her. Looked straight into her eyes, those beautiful eyes now filled with tears. Happy tears.</p>
<p>“Will you do me the honor in becoming my wife and marry me?”</p>
<p>Annie jumped up from her chair that she was still sitting in and pulled him up from off of the floor by his shoulders, not taking the time to give a verbal answer before she smashed her mouth to his. She roped her hands through his hair, pulled tightly at the tufts at the base of his neck, before wrapping her arms around it. He followed her lead and dipped her, making her laugh as she broke apart from him, staring up at his face, flushed with happiness, and into his eyes, teary with emotion.</p>
<p>“Woah there. I hadn’t realized my fiancé was an original Patrick Swayze.”</p>
<p>He laughed before picking up on the implication of her word choice, stopping abruptly.</p>
<p>“You said fiancé.”</p>
<p>She grinned at him. “Yes sir, I did.”</p>
<p>He pulled her up from her current position, so that she was standing again, and he laughed. He couldn’t help it. He was just feeling so much at once. “So is that a yes?”</p>
<p>She laughed too, in that adorable toddler way of hers and it rang in his eardrums. He was the happiest he had ever been in his entire life right in this moment. The MLB had nothing on this. Nothing on <em>her. </em></p>
<p>She got quiet, but he shouldn’t have worried. “Tyler Sean Townsend, when it comes to you, it has <em>always </em>been a yes.”</p>
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